Abstract
The article introduces a science education intervention using life-cycle analysis of consumer products. The intervention aims to promote lower secondary school students’ science career awareness and interest toward science studies. In this study, two lower secondary school teachers planned an intervention on life-cycle analysis, which aimed to be relevant for the students from an individual, societal, and vocational perspective. The study then examined how students perceived the relevance of the intervention, based on classroom observations, students’ life-cycle presentations, questionnaire responses, as well as interviews. The findings indicate that students found life-cycle assessment to be a relevant topic both from an individual and societal perspective. However, findings on vocational relevance were two-fold, as students gained knowledge on different occupations, but this did not seem to directly affect their future career aspirations.
Highlights
During the past few decades, many studies have shown that science education is unpopular among young students, seen, for instance, in the low enrolment levels to upper secondary school science courses [1] and students’ non-science related future career aspirations [2,3,4]
The study shows that Life-cycle assessment (LCA) offers the opportunity for students to see science in a real-life context and promotes discussion on ethics and moral issues, needed more in science education [29]
The LCA intervention presented in this study provides a good platform for introducing science related careers, the intervention did not have an effect on students’ career goals
Summary
During the past few decades, many studies have shown that science education is unpopular among young students, seen, for instance, in the low enrolment levels to upper secondary school science courses [1] and students’ non-science related future career aspirations [2,3,4]. Science education has had a strong focus on giving students tools they would need if they wanted to pursue a career in science, medicine, or engineering [8]. As not all students will become scientists, such a focus makes science education more or less irrelevant to the majority of students [9] To deal with this issue, in the late 1960s, science education began to focus more on a “Scientific Literacy for All” [10,11] approach. This transformation led science education to focus more on helping students become scientifically literate citizens who can participate in socio-scientific discourse [12], something relevant to students, as they are often keen to consider their role in society [13]. The pre-determined industries were the plastic industry, cosmetics, the pharmaceutical industry, the paper industry, and the textiles industry
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